by Ned P. Rauch, The (Westchester County, N.Y.) Journal News

by Ned P. Rauch, The (Westchester County, N.Y.) Journal News

The region's Ukrainian community - about 10,000 Ukrainians are thought to live in Westchester County, New York - is agonizing over the deadly clashes between protesters and government forces that have turned Ukraine's capital into a battlefield.

"I hope not to see civil war in my country, but it looks like it could go that way," Yonkers resident Sergiy Fedorov, 30, said.

A co-worker, Yuriy Fizer, 34, also of Yonkers, said, "I'm just deeply, emotionally concerned, afraid of the situation escalating towards more violence. ... I pray every day for the lives of my close family, relatives, friends."

Their employer, the Ukrainian SUMA Federal Credit Union, based in Yonkers, has raised more than $30,000 in relief aid for victims of the violence and their families. A rally in front of the Ukrainian Consulate in Manhattan is scheduled for Sunday. After gathering there, participants will march to the Russian Consulate.

Nataliya Zhara, 42, of New Rochelle, another credit union worker, said she speaks regularly with her family in Ukraine. She has told her children to remember what's happening and to be proud of their heritage. Asked what she planned to do in the coming days, she answered, "Pray."

Scores of people have been killed since the protests, which began in November, turned violent in recent days. Roman Kozicky, a spokesman for a local branch of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, said government-backed thugs fomented the violence. He and the credit union workers said they hoped President Viktor F. Yanukovych would resign, that new elections would be held and a new constitution adopted.

"This government has lost its legitimacy completely when it ordered the killing of innocent people," Fizer said. "This guy who some people still call president, I don't consider him a president anymore. He's a criminal."

In discussing what's happening in their homeland, the group tried to cast the reasons behind the protest in a new light, one that focused less on Ukraine's role in the power play between Russia and Western Europe and more on solidarity.

"It's not anti-anything, it's just pro-Ukraine," Kozicky said, going on to describe the country's complicated history. The protesters, he said, haven't taken to the streets merely to improve their own lots. "It's for their children, their grandchildren. They keep making it about Putin versus Obama or the European Union. It's not. It's about Ukraine being Ukraine."

All four said they are in constant contact with friends and relatives in Ukraine. They keep up on what's happening there largely through social media. It's painful to watch from afar, they said, but they hope that by raising awareness of the violence here, the United States government will be moved to act, exerting its influence to restore peace.

They also said their country can serve as an example of how easily democracy and human rights can slip out of a people's grasp.

"I hope it will show this can happen anywhere," Fedorov said. "We are still fighting for our freedom in the 21st century."